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Season 2 Episode 2: Heartbeat Fuckery with Anna Fitzgerald
130 Plays4 years ago
This episode features Anna Fitzgerald, Queen Bee, Chief Creative Pollinator of the Heartbeat Hive. Anna Fitzgerald, The Muse Writers Center's Program Associate, holds a degree in Art Education and has taught art K-12 in multiple settings, including at an international school in Costa Rica. Her philosophy of teaching includes multiple intelligences and holistic approach to the student as a learner and member of the education ecosystem. She founded a music program at age 19 with two of her best friends in Tennessee that eventually became an arts & music nonprofit. It’s called Youth Empowerment through Arts & Humanities, YEAH, and is headquartered in Nashville, TN. This TN nonprofit serves youth ages 10-17 through summer camps both all girl, co-ed, and transgender inclusive. Instructors are community artists, musicians, and arts supporters. YEAH! is now 16 yrs old and funded by the TN arts Commission and companies such as Guitar Center, Fender, and Gibson. She holds a masters in Radio/TV/Film from the University of Texas at Austin, TX in Radio/TV Film. Her published research includes the history of concert posters and music subcultures. She has presented at the National Art Education Association conference, to many organizations, and enjoys contributing to her community wherever she may be as a volunteer and positive leader. Her professional experience includes 16 yrs of volunteer & nonprofit management, music publishing, vinyl production, and administrative support. She is originally from NC, plays the cello, and loves being in nature.
This episode was edited by son, thank you for your patience while we learn the editing process.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Fabulous Fuckery' Podcast
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to Fabulous Fuckery. I'm your host, Baroness Brie. Fabulous Fuckery is your sophisticated destination for discussion on wellness, dating, family, and blurred life. Come with me while we discuss emerging fabulously in spite of life's fuckery. It's your girl, Baroness Brie.
00:00:29
Speaker
Good afternoon.
Role and Youth Empowerment in YEAH Program
00:00:31
Speaker
Today I have with us Ms. Anna Fitzgerald. She's a Muse Writer Centered Program Associate and she holds a degree in Art Education. She has taught grades K through 12 in multiple settings, including an international school in Costa Rica. Ms. Fitzgerald also has a program called YEAH, which is a youth empowerment through humanities and arts program centered in Nashville, Tennessee.
00:00:55
Speaker
Her Tennessee nonprofit serves youth ages 10 through 17 through summer camps for both all-girl co-ed and transgendered inclusive students Miss I'm sorry, Miss Fitzgerald. You just first of all blew me away because you have included Transgenders in a program before it was even something people understood about can you tell me how long this program has been around so I was
00:01:25
Speaker
19 when I got involved with the Southern Girls Rock and Roll Camp in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where EEA sort of started. And at the time, the community really needed women to step up and
00:01:42
Speaker
the men around us to encourage us to make music. And so my best friend Kelly Anderson founded the camp and I started teaching there. I taught guitar and songwriting. The students have several workshops that are
00:02:03
Speaker
including recording their music, screen printing their own t-shirts. I added a music her story class so that they could learn about women throughout the times and their involvement in music. And I want to say about 2005, we started noticing our students either making a transition either way, and we made the decision that
00:02:33
Speaker
you know, they belong, everyone belongs. And we had already had transgender instructors. And so we just said, this is it. We then started a co ed camp after that camp had been around for a
Academic Journey and Cultural Insights
00:02:51
Speaker
while. And the official nonprofit paperwork was filed later, but it has now been around 17 years.
00:03:01
Speaker
Congratulations on that. But in addition to all of that, you went back to school, you got your master's, you are doing some amazing things. You have your master's in what, record? I'm sorry, radio, TV, and film? Media studies.
00:03:21
Speaker
That is a blanket statement if you are in academia for lots of things. But I did a combination of, I would say, ethnomusicology, art history, and I would say multimedia production. So my degree, I designed it to be about the history of concert posters and how music subcultures form.
00:03:52
Speaker
yeah it's very very concentrated okay well that sounds really i mean i'm just thinking about the fact that you wrote a paper on concert music posters it shows that you really do love music and you really are a fan at heart definitely and um i just i just think that's so neat like i wish i could tell my parents that i was
00:04:17
Speaker
Getting a degree I actually got funded as an undergraduate scholar To study just that screen printing and rock and roll because we were offering that at our rock camps and And as an art student art education student, I had to take screen printing and I was very active in the music scene. So Yeah, I I always
00:04:45
Speaker
kind of talk about the fine print of life. There are ways to find money. There are ways to get what you want to accomplish done. And you just have to search for it. And you also have to let people know about your ideas. And some people come along and help you with that. But one of those was my scholarship program, which eventually ended up
00:05:06
Speaker
funding my graduate research too, called the McNair Fellowship, McNair Scholars, named after Ronald E. McNair who died in the Challenger. So yeah, I am incredibly honored to say that I have been paid many times to study rock and roll and music.
00:05:33
Speaker
That is amazing. I'm sorry, I think that is just so cool.
Transition to Life Coaching and Heartbeat Hive
00:05:37
Speaker
Now I want to talk a little bit because you also, in addition to all of your other fabulosity, you are also a life coach for creative people. And that is how I met you through her program called the Heartbeat Hive. Anna has transformed herself into the Queen Bee, where she is encouraging this hive of people
00:05:59
Speaker
to change their thinking, to increase their creativity, and be more successful in life. Myself, I mean, you have just helped me to learn more positive thinking, to change my vibrations, because when you met me, my vibrations were very low. And I just want you to talk about how you came to decide that this was a coaching program for you. I would say
00:06:27
Speaker
There are threads in our lives and sometimes, you know, during the moment or the season of your life, you pull on that thread. It's just not the right time. And in that case, it becomes a snag. But when the time is right and you pull on the thread and you see how far back it goes, you come into the realization that everything has led you to this moment.
00:06:55
Speaker
In my life, I have worked with so many creative people in so many different fields. And then I've also participated in theater, in chorus, in drumline, orchestra, visual art, just all kinds of things, acting, radio.
00:07:21
Speaker
experience and been fortunate enough to dive into those areas and oh I even worked at a comedy club so I was in the comedy scene for a while getting to know how those creatives think and when I was in it it they seemed to be snags you know because I wasn't
00:07:47
Speaker
I hadn't arrived. So every time I would think to myself, wow, you really love what you do. And you love being in this energy of creative people, which now I call the hive. But you're not sustained. You haven't quite figured out how to be sustained by those experiences. And I'm still learning that I think we all continue to learn
00:08:15
Speaker
that sustainability part, whether it's money or energy or time. So I have advised and been the person that people come to when they want to understand, well, how do I maximize my time? How do I become more productive? And then some of my friends and people I've worked with is, how do I heal myself? How do I stop looking for the external
00:08:44
Speaker
and find whatever I need inside. So I came to a point where I just decided that it was time. Like those those snags were no longer snags. They were a thread and I could see all the way back to my experience. Even as a little girl I was
00:09:10
Speaker
I asked for drawing lessons, still life mind you, still life drawing lessons as my Christmas present when I was eight. So I was very serious about my passions and I was very fortunate to have parents who always supported me in that. So I saw a program that really caught my eye that combined sort of
00:09:40
Speaker
pretty basic quantum mechanics ideas, quantum physics ideas, and a more spiritual side. I thought, well, I've got plenty of practical experience. I've got plenty of real world experience. And then I have, you know, a couple pieces of paper that say I can do things or that I've studied this and that. So I wanted to go to that spiritual side and
00:10:09
Speaker
figure out how to combine everything in a harmonious way. And so I went through that 13 month coaching program called the Quantum Success Coaching Academy. And I just really love bees. And I used to keep bees on my family farm. So I said, you know what, this is this is for me. I'm doing this and I haven't looked back.
00:10:41
Speaker
Now, my question for you is, what was it like transforming your life? When you decided this was what my goal was, what steps do you take to say, OK, I'm not doing this daytime job anymore. I'm going to follow my passion. When did you decide to make that transformation?
Balancing Creativity and Practical Work
00:11:01
Speaker
I want to back up and say that I have a very different view on whether or not your passion
00:11:10
Speaker
needs to sustain you fully, financially. I have a theory that creative people need different stimuli. And if they feel trapped in the same stimuli, receiving the same stimuli every day, such as like a cubicle job, their soul begins to wither. And
00:11:37
Speaker
In a neuroscience way, that really is happening because you're using the same patterns and the same pathways in your brain because the stimuli is not different enough. So I currently work other jobs and that is something that really helped. Once I came to that conclusion,
00:12:02
Speaker
It really helped me with understanding that the transition that you're talking about doesn't have to be right away. A lot of people talk about jumping, you know, just jump, trust the universe. And don't get me wrong, I really trust the universe. But I also know that there are practical things that
00:12:24
Speaker
If you did that jump and you got into a stressful situation or in a state of lack, then you would really be hurting. And in that state of lack, you can't be of service to yourself or to others. So with the stimuli, it actually kind of relates to creative flow.
00:12:50
Speaker
So in creative flow, diversity of stimuli is one of the biggest needs to create flow, to get into flow.
00:13:01
Speaker
Without that diversity of stimuli, your brain cannot make connections, which is called pattern recognition. So I have several jobs right now, and my business is open enough to, say, do speaking, to do coaching, to do YouTube.
00:13:20
Speaker
podcast much like yours so that I can get that stimuli and be doing different things. At nighttime your brain actually does that pattern recognition in a way and it also releases a stress protein and there's these cells that go in and clean that protein out at nighttime.
00:13:47
Speaker
So I was a long way around, but to make that transition, the first thing you need to do is to accept that it will not happen overnight. And to decide what is the stimuli that I want and how do I want to expend my energy?
00:14:15
Speaker
Hey guys, it's your girl Baroness Brie. Save yourself that trip to the market and follow the link in my show notes to my Instacart discount for this week. Instacart delivers groceries in as fast as one hour. I don't know about you, but I had to work overtime yesterday and the last thing I wanted to do was go to the grocery store. Check out Instacart.
00:14:39
Speaker
I like that because you know a lot of people we live in the world of social media where everyone is doing well and everyone is living a fantastic life and everyone's driving fancy cars and it's making it look like these creatives are quitting their day jobs to follow their passions. Some are and lord bless them but I appreciate your reality take on the fact that yes I do work a couple of jobs but at night
00:15:07
Speaker
I get to do the things that stimulate me and keep me happy. And I think that's the most important thing. I'm learning that myself. I think I was expecting way too much of myself at one point and I was burning myself out. And now you say, okay, I can work my nine to five and then, you know, do my two hour transition, do my mom life. And then I go to my room and write to my heart's content.
00:15:33
Speaker
If the piece sells a piece sells and if it doesn't I still have a day job that will feed me If I jump in with both feet every project is no longer a passion project it is now a meal ticket and It will stress me to the point Where you don't feel comfortable creating because it's known the job that you loathed in the first. Yeah You know people asked me. Why do you do so many different things? Because I do
00:16:02
Speaker
But I've been that way a long time. I've always done a lot of different jobs or taken on odd jobs, even when I had stable, you know, abundant income. And I always look for the advantages. So one of the things that I do now is I work at a restaurant. I can work at any restaurant, but I've been working at the same restaurant because the people there are incredibly creative.
00:16:30
Speaker
there are artists, there are skateboarders, there are musicians, there are singers, there are poets. There's just that energy that I like to be around and I like to stay connected to them to kind of keep my, you know, my ear out for opportunities that would relate to my coaching or to listen to their problems
00:16:53
Speaker
and apply it to the content that I'm putting out even if those people never ever become clients or you know watch my youtube channel or anything it doesn't matter to me because I'm there listening and I'm getting paid to be there so I I really see it as a a twofer really
00:17:15
Speaker
It sounds like a research project. I used to say that about my more physical jobs, like, Oh, you want to pay me to work out? Great. So I think you can always find the good. And that's your job. Your job is not to struggle and get through things. Your job is to find
00:17:39
Speaker
find the good and how it can work for you, whether that means that that specific job is a step to another place or there's something you need to gain from it. That's just how I see that. But I think the woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, Liz Gilbert,
00:18:02
Speaker
Liz Gilbert, that's right. She has a really good talk on this if you ever want to look that up. She talks about people with diverse interests and people who just can't find their passion that
Impact of Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity
00:18:14
Speaker
they need to be respected too because sometimes those people come into your life and really inspire you and their job is not to stay in one place. Their job is to pollinate and go around and look at different flowers and comment on how beautiful they are or
00:18:31
Speaker
you know, encourage and support in those ways. So I really enjoyed that talk about passing. She's amazing. She's one of my favorite authors. I've actually quoted her a few times on the podcast. The book Big Magic is one of my favorite books. And she just changed the way I looked at art. And it was interesting because around the time I've read that book, I found you on Instagram.
00:18:59
Speaker
And you're like, okay. And, you know, guys, she's as in as she is right now. And like, Anna is just so cool and comic collected. And your Instagram is very well cultivated with thoughts and ideas that aren't tied to, they're tied to nature more than anything else.
00:19:21
Speaker
And I wanna ask you, how do you go through the day-to-day, like how do you say, okay, this is what makes me happy or this is what, you know, this is, I'm sorry, I'm gonna rephrase my question. How would you say, this is where I, this is my happy place. How did you discover your happy place? Because I'm learning a lot of people don't know how to find happy time for themselves.
00:19:48
Speaker
It makes me sad. So do you have any tips for people who are saying this is my couch? This is how I found my happy place Okay, I want to back up and say that Finding your happy place in order to do that. You must be content by yourself So most people
00:20:12
Speaker
are overstimulated just by pure existence in this modern world. We make like 7,000 decisions every day. We are bombarded with media, media, media, and the perceived expectations of responding to things. So I have a long history of
00:20:37
Speaker
alone time. But that was due to the fact that my parents were in the military. So I often didn't get the choice as a child
00:20:50
Speaker
So I learned to sit with myself and be alone very early. So for me, that's, that's a very normal thing. It is not, I realize that it's not normal for everyone. So there's some things that happen when you are not
00:21:11
Speaker
Okay, so to speak, comfortable with that. One of them is codependency. The other is, I would say, a chemical dependency of dopamine. So
00:21:29
Speaker
When you find yourself attracted to checking your phone because you would like a message to be there or looking at your likes or something like that, what's actually happening is you're getting dopamine hits every time you check it and it's there. So the next time you go back,
00:21:56
Speaker
your expectation is connected to the chemistry of what's happening in your brain. Well, you just snatched everyone's edges, Anna, because, you know, phone is life, you know, social media is life. And yeah, you know, so we're addicted to the likes. And that's sad. It's really sad.
00:22:19
Speaker
Think it's okay. I think we're gonna get better. We're already coming back around and this is something that you study in, you know, like my master's research was very much about That the people my cohort some of them were studying Facebook, you know before it was like cool to study Facebook Back in 2009 and 10 But I think we're gonna be fine. There's definitely a movement to
00:22:50
Speaker
recognize what is authentic and what is not. And the first wave has come.
00:22:58
Speaker
And so we're, we're coming around to that. And, you know, it's funny because you can decide how you want to perceive it and you can decide how you want to, um, project. So for instance, my Instagram is you use the word cultivated. Thank you. Um, it's, uh, it's aesthetically pleasing.
00:23:25
Speaker
every one of those photos I have taken or someone I know has taken my ghost photographer. But they are a real person taking them. None of them are bought. And that's my choice. But when I look at pictures online, I have
00:23:47
Speaker
pretty much zero assumptions about whether I want it to be real and the energy of what's projected, I feel it. So when I see someone holding in their stomach or whatever, I can recognize that very easily because I have those senses. For people who don't have that,
00:24:13
Speaker
I wouldn't worry about it unless it was affecting you negatively. And that's where that dopamine, those brain chemistry chemicals come in. If you're starting to compare yourself, then you know there's something going on.
00:24:29
Speaker
But if you look at it and you just pass on by, that is not harmful in that way. So I think what I'm getting at is that we need to take responsibility for ourselves versus blaming other people for putting out whatever they're putting out.
00:24:47
Speaker
I agree with you 1000% only because, you know, at one point in time, I was really addicted to Instagram. And, you know, before you realize it, it's like, oh, my phone, my phone didn't beep. I didn't get any likes. I got to take the picture down. What? And I'm like, when did you turn into a teenage girl? So it got to a point where, you know, I said, okay, let me mute this. Let me disable my notifications. Let me disable because at the end of the day, I'm putting out content.
00:25:16
Speaker
that I know is useful and some days I'm being silly and sometimes being silly is okay as well but you know it's finding that balance of usefulness and fun and that's where you find your authentic place and so my you know one of the things I've learned with you Anna is figuring out my purpose and balancing my productivity
00:25:40
Speaker
And so I want to know if you have any balancing tips that you can give my listener.
Coaching Approach: Triangle Model
00:25:48
Speaker
Okay, so I have a triangle that I use to kind of base my coaching on in my life. And Breeze probably heard this, but if you were to look at a triangle that you know, it looks like a pyramid,
00:26:07
Speaker
At the top, it will be beliefs. On the left-hand side, it will be behaviors. And then the right-hand side will be results. And that's the first layer of that triangle. And I like to say that that's also an equation. If any one of those are removed and you want to find out what is it that's triggering me to be unbalanced, remove one of those words.
00:26:32
Speaker
and look at the relationship and you'll find it. So like if your belief was really heavy in one way, think of it as a weight. If it weighted that triangle down, the pyramid would collapse, right? So all of those have to be in harmony. And on the sides of the triangle, they are clarity.
00:26:58
Speaker
consistency and commitment because you can do something consistently and not like it. So if you are not committed in that way, then the change isn't going to happen for you and that balance isn't going to be maintained. So the first thing is to get clear.
00:27:22
Speaker
And that may be getting clear about your belief. Like, okay, why do I even have this belief? What is this thing? Is it my parents? Is it a triggering event that made me kind of go towards that? And once you get clear on that, you can start to say, well, what is this belief? Is it affecting my behavior? Is it affecting my results? So belief behaviors results is the first sort of layer
00:27:51
Speaker
And then the change comes through the clarity, the consistency, and then your commitment to that. And what I want to say too is that different beliefs serve us in different seasons of our lives. That is true. That is so true. We need not. No, no, no, you go.
00:28:12
Speaker
Um, we need not blame ourselves. So, sure. You had this belief, you got into some bad stuff, um, you hit a low point, it didn't serve you, yada yada.
00:28:25
Speaker
yes that happened but you are who you are because of that so let's not shame ourselves and beat ourselves up over the past let's move forward with all that you are and all that you are includes the bad you know it really does
00:28:49
Speaker
No, about me, this is eye opening and I'm not sure if the listeners are going to listen to this on their drive to work in the morning or, you know, on their way home at night. But, you know, I hope no one is like ready to like turn in their resignation letter and like, I'm about to find my clarity and my purpose.
00:29:06
Speaker
And just the way that you explained it is very well put. And I want to know if you can share with our listeners where they can find you and what's the best way to get in contact with you.
00:29:21
Speaker
Okay. Um, I want to say that my Instagram is going to be changing my, my ghost photographer was my boyfriend. So that is going to be changing, but, um, you can find me on Instagram. That is at heart beat highs.
00:29:43
Speaker
And I post affirmations and powerful questions there. I may be going live soon on that platform. But we'll see. You can also find me at my website, which is heartbeathive.com. And you can find all my services and about my creative mastermind there as well.
00:30:06
Speaker
Well, I want to just thank you for just being Zen and providing tools, especially guys, just she has guided me through, even if I don't know if you realize it, but the guidance that you've provided as far as just do it and see what happens. And I'm like, what? You know, it's no return on investment. You know, that is just anti what I've been taught my whole career.
00:30:31
Speaker
And it's like, I've been podcasting for 90 days. I should have a million followers. I should have 17 sponsorship. And Anna's like, why? Why should you have these things? I'm like, because Instagram told me I would.
00:30:45
Speaker
So, you know, we have to really look at our thoughts and our beliefs and say, why do we believe these things for ourselves? So thank you for sharing your story. And thank you for giving this information. Guys, this is fabulous fuckery. And this is Bree Hill, Baroness Bree. And I thank you for joining us today. And Anna, thank you for your time. Thank you. Keep your vibration high, guys.